Dan Dare

It's best not to try to keep your fretting hand stationary or attempt to play out of fixed positions. You need to move it constantly to compensate for a variety of issues - you may have small hands/short fingers that make it impossible to reach all the frets from one position, you may have an injury as |Hiram points out, or it may just be more comfortable for you. We all have to find our own way to get the results we want.

Did you have a previous interface? I replaced my old one recently and had to keep telling the PC not to default to the old one (I've now deleted the driver, files, etc for the old one).

???? I have a friend who is a highly regarded violin maker (players in major London orchestras use his instruments). He also does restoration and repair on some pretty special stuff. I visited him once and he had a viola in his workshop. I asked, jokingly, whether it was a Strad'. "Yes", he replied. "It's actually the only Strad' viola in the country" (there are just a dozen known to be in existence worldwide). I asked him whether he thought the working of an amplified solid instrument was more complex than an acoustic one and he was amused. I shan't mention his name because he would rather I didn't.

Don't fret about it.

Agreed. That's why I don't like the great majority of metal bands. The fact that thousands of other people do something doesn't make it any less trashy, even if it is well executed.

Agreed. Skilfully executed and formulaic.

That's one of the things you pay Ken Smith prices for. It doesn't alter the fact that any half decent instrument (maybe not outright El Cheapos, as I pointed out) will be made from reliable materials. Talk of leaving instrument timber for years for the "grain to align" or exposing it to vibration to "make it resonate properly" is all part of the sales pitch (some may even say snake oil) we're fed by those eager for us to spend our money on their wares. Aren't I the cynic?

If you want backup and assuming that cost is not too critical, I agree with Bill and others who say you may as well get something of 500w or so. That will do for both smaller jobs and as a stand in for your main amp should it ever blow a gasket.

Interesting article on R4 earlier about streaming, trading of music as product and investment (see The Price of Song - BBC Sounds). Thoughtful, sensible comments from Abba's Björn Ulvaeus, and others including Paul McCartney. Björn: "I want my money to go to the people whose recordings I play; but at the moment most of it goes to the mega-artists who have billions of clicks". "But you're one of those mega-artists!". "Yes, but it's completely unfair". Agreed, Bjorn

No instrument manufacturer, save perhaps the worst El Cheapo merchants, uses unseasoned or green timber. It will all be kiln dried at the very least.

I'd try re-gluing the dust cap. You need a flexible glue and one that doesn't contain powerful solvents (driver manufacturers use latex-based glues on cones). You've nothing to lose by trying. It won't hurt the driver any more than it might be already. Given that the noise occurs when you are playing low and hard, which demands more extreme cone movements, it might help.

P/J pickups and a preamp will cost you quite a bit - £200-£300. Is the instrument worth it? Remember you won't get much of the money back when/if you come to sell it. "Upgraded" instruments rarely fetch good money. Would it be better to put the money towards a new bass?

Wilmslow are very good. Have a look at IPL and Falcon, too.

With the combination of instruments you play, I'd agree that quality powered PA speakers and mixer or preamp are probably the way to go.

It's a tranny amp. See xgsjx's post above. Fixing it will cost more than it's worth. Save your money and put it towards something newer/better.

If you only want it for headphone use, a small decent quality mixer will do the trick. I use one at home, fed by a good DI box and it works well. You can feed whatever you want to practice/play along with into the mixer and adjust relative volume levels, even reduce low frequencies in the track if the eq is good enough, which is handy if you don't want to hear too much of the original bass part. Getting get that studio/flat/clean tone out of an amp and speakers at any volume is another matter and it won't be cheap. You need large monitor type speakers and powerful amplification, all working well within their capabilities to do that.

Fwiw, I have the Rega, too and am happy with it.

Got any nice instruments you're willing to let me have for well under market price? 😁 P.S. I promise not to flip them...

In that case, slojo's correct and the preamp is built into your turntable. You will need to connect the phono out (which is the non-boosted signal) on the turntable to a phono preamp and from there into your amp. Take the turntable to the shop so you can compare them.

Ah. Didn't think of that. I wonder if it can be by-passed if that's the case.

A pleasure. Try to take your amp along to compare the inbuilt pre' with whatever the shop suggests. You may find there isn't a great improvement unless you spend a bit. Denon stuff is pretty decent for the money.

That's been a standard budget recommendation for some years. See my previous post about levels, though.

Cables can be the hi-fi world's equivalent to tone woods in solid electric instruments. You can pay a fortune for them and although it can be argued they can improve sound quality, you won't get a higher signal level by swapping them out. As a cartridge produces such a tiny signal, it needs to be boosted by a phono preamp (which is what you have in your amplifier). The preamp also corrects the frequency balance - low frequencies are minimised when cutting records in order to reduce the amount the record grooves modulate. If they weren't, the stylus wouldn't be able to track them (look up RIAA equalisation for an explanation). You may be able to get a phono preamp that produces higher output than the one built into your amp (you would have to run it into a line, not the phono input). Not sure about that - you'll need to do some research - but you may have to accept that vinyl is not going to produce as high an output as streaming, CDs or DAB. Stand alone phono pre's can be pretty expensive. Have a look online for reviews and recommendations in places such as - Best phono preamps 2021: budget to high-end | What Hi-Fi? and ask a few decent shops for advice (keeping your b/s and snake oil filters firmly engaged). Have fun.

How? If you are selling something, new or old, you want to get as much as you can for it. The price of everything is dictated by supply/availability, demand and whatever people are willing to pay. That willingness is governed by quality (real or perceived), desirability, value (again real or perceived), fitness for purpose, fashion and so on.